Sufiah Yusof on feminism and media issues (2017)

Tag Archives: Tinglang Hong Hugh Grant

Keith Gladdis, director at MHP Communications : he forcefully claims “I’m not a sex-offender or a pervert and it’s hurtful to suggest otherwise as I’m the “dad of two young children”. Although my wife Caroline is obese and blonde, just like my mum, I do have history of secretly taking photographs of naked slim Asian women without their consent. It’s a “legitimate journalistic exercise.””

Going through some of my notes now…

Keith Gladdis really seems to think that he and his excessively adipose, domineering mum Trish Gladdis have some divine right to harass and bully vulnerable complete strangers and then turn into complaining bullies when they (very softly) speak back?

This is a published statement from the actor Hugh Grant, about Keith Gladdis stalking his (Chinese) girlfriend.

It would seem – a few years after stalking and filming me – Keith was obsessed with following a pregnant Chinese woman around

And when Grant dared to defend her, Keith and his colleagues at the Daily Mail went truly apeshit…

“

Much of the Daily Mail reporting has been by Keith Gladdis. He is also the person behind most of the texting and phoning of Tinglan since the birth. Keith Gladdis worked for the News of the World until July. Some of the pictures that are printed of Tinglan when pregnant, taken either covertly when she was under surveillance, or openly and expressly against her will, are the ones used in the News of the World article back in April. The Mail appears therefore to be picking up where the disgraced News of the World left off.

20.

This supplementary statement is written nine days after the story broke. Tinglan is still being followed and harassed. Yesterday she was followed in her car and photographed coming into her house. In his efforts to restrain these photographers my lawyer asked if it might be possible to get pictures of them and their registration plates. Tinglan’s mother, a lady of 61, started to take photos of one photographer parked outside. He immediately turned his camera on her, took some pictures and then accelerated hard towards her so fast that Tinglan’s mother had to jump out of the way. Then he did a U- turn at the end of the street and drove fast towards her again in a deliberately menacing way. She was, and remains, extremely frightened. As a result of this, and of all the harassment since the birth, my lawyer is now going to apply for an injunction against all photographers taking pictures of Tinglan and our daughter. I have also arranged for a security guard to be outside the house and to protect them both when they have to go out. As I say, I have been in Berlin much of the time since the birth, but I managed to get to the house again yesterday afternoon. As I approached I took a picture of a different photographer’s car and registration plate. When I tried to get a picture of his face, he turned away and held up his hands and drove off. This is not untypical. I have always found that paparazzi are very protective of their privacy.

21.

My main concern was and remains with the harassment, untruths and intrusion that Tinglan has been through and continues to undergo. However, as I said in my main statement, it has always been a very dangerous business to criticise the popular press and their methods. And in the last nine days most of the tabloids have set their columnists on me. For sheer density of abuse no one has been able to beat Amanda Platell in a piece she wrote in the Daily Mail. In the space of one 1300 word piece, based largely on the misreportings I mentioned above (the non existent 21 year old girlfriend etc) she accused me of being lonely, bitter, oleaginous, misogynistic, self-obsessed, irresponsible, insensitive, uncaring and in ‘tawdry, inexorable decline’. It appeared to me at the time and to others (judging by those I spoke to and the comments below the piece online) to be a pretty blatant attempt at character assassination. Like most of the similar pieces in other papers it also referenced my low opinion of the tabloid press as a specific reason why I should be loathed. I mention this not so much as a moan about critical opinion pieces based on lazy untruths – this is part and parcel of being in the cross hairs of the popular press in this country. Hate sells. I mention it more because its particular savagery in this instance was remarked on by so many; and it was their opinion that I was being made an example of. The message seemed to be that anyone like me who had the effrontery to speak openly about phone hacking, intrusion, harassment and other tabloid abuse, or who agreed to be a witness at this Inquiry, could expect similar treatment. The tabloids talk a lot these days about freedom of expression. But criticism of themselves has never been allowed. That is why they have had had so little of it for so long.